Flight Distance
by Airgead
Summary: Harry, alone with his thoughts, and Ruth, alone in her grief after the death of Jo, has to be one of the most heart-rending endings to an episode ever in Spooks (and there are many from which to choose). This is my take on what may have occurred after the final scene of 8.3. As ever, Kudos/BBC own what's theirs, and the rest is my own work.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: This is a slight departure from **_**Hook, Line, and Sinker**_**… it's a fragment that's been lying around in the files for ages, and I finally decided to dust it off and post it.**

**H/R fans, this one's for you – enjoy! Reviews, as always, are most welcome.**

_**Thou art so swift, yet easy curbed; so gentle, yet so free;**_

_**And yet, if haply, when thou'rt gone, my lonely heart should yearn-**_

_**Can the hand which casts thee from it now command thee to return?**_

He has had enough. This time, she is not going to slip out of his reach, twisting away yet again to a safe remove at the last second. _Reaching her flight distance_, he thinks despondently, and as so often when he contemplates his relationship with Ruth, he is reminded of the horses he grew up with. Harry loves horses, and he is good with them, his hands sensitive on the reins; for a man such as himself, he is uncharacteristically patient with these beautiful flight animals, and they love him for it. Fight or flight, the two great instinctual responses to danger...every creature on the planet is born with either one or the other as their default response to life or death situations. He knows he's a fighter, and has the scars to prove it; but Ruth is the ultimate flight animal, forever shying away, then taking tentative steps back towards the object of her fear and fascination, eyes wary, ears pricked…ready to flee at his slightest movement. It is an exhausting yet compelling game they play, each bound to the other by a thousand invisible ties, neither able to break free of the spell that draws them together.

As his gaze falls on the small, stylised, bronze statuette of a horse that he keeps in his office (he had found it, decades ago, in a random souk somewhere in Turkey, or Kabul, or…or _somewhere…_), Harry recalls the chestnut thoroughbred filly his father had brought home when he was sixteen; she was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen, but so highly strung she couldn't bear the slightest touch. She would instantly flinch away if he tried to approach her, quivering all over and rolling her eyes in fear. His father had once spent an hour leaning on the gate of the high field, watching Harry try to catch the filly. He had stalked her all over the hillside, swearing in exasperation as she slipped out of his reach at the last moment, flinging her head high so Harry couldn't seize her halter, frisking away downhill, tail streaming behind like a banner. Once Harry was exhausted and thoroughly fed up, his father spoke, in his soft, old Yorkshire countryman's way. "Stand still, lad. Just stand still. She'll come to thee, if thee stands still. Nay, don't look round for her, just stand still." And Harry had stood, shivering, in the middle of the field for what seemed like an eternity, with a bitter North wind whipping across the top of the hill (_A thin wind_, his father called it), under an iron grey sky, until he felt the velvet of her muzzle just brushing the back of his neck, delicate nostrils flared to catch his scent.

He was as still as a statue as she stepped delicately around him, feeling her tension gradually ebbing away as she became accustomed to his scent, then to the sight of him, his shape no longer a cause for alarm. When she finally gave him a gentle nudge in the small of his back, he had squinted, one-eyed, over his shoulder, and saw the filly standing not four feet away. He turned around with infinite slowness, carefully stretching one hand towards her halter; although she wickered nervously and one ear flicked back, then forwards towards him again, she allowed him to take hold of it and clip on the lead rope. He extended his hand further, until it just rested on the crest of her neck, then he stroked lightly down towards the withers, again and again, familiarising her with his touch. Finally, when he could see that she was relaxed and confident in his presence, he had led her slowly out of the field, his father's nod and quiet "Well done, lad" exhilarating praise in his sixteen-year-old ears. It had been an object lesson in patience which had stood him in good stead, until now. _Until Ruth._

God knows, he has been patient: they had played a long game for years, and then he'd thought that he had lost her forever, and that had been bad enough, only for her to be dragged back into his life, under the most unimaginable circumstances. No, this time he's going to go after her, and he puts all other thoughts out of his mind: her terrible anger over George's death (he knows she lays the blame squarely on his wide shoulders, and like a dumb beast of burden, he has bowed meekly to this bitter yoke) and the loss of her idyllic, elegant life in the Mediterranean, rudely jolted out of her beautiful dream because of him; the cold hostility she has been meting out to him as punishment ever since, and which he has humbly accepted as his due, unable to give her one good excuse for why George had to die; she already knows why, and what's worse, she _understands_, and this only makes it all the harder to look her in the eye. If he thinks of any of this now, he will once more feel the slow creep of fear and indecision paralysing his reason, and the moment will slip away. Harry gets slowly to his feet with a groan as too-tense muscles protest at the movement. On days like this, he feels every one of his years, and each one of his old injuries aches just enough to remind him that he is still alive.

She has only just left his office, discreetly sliding the door shut, her face crumpling as the news of Jo's shocking death started to sink in. _She couldn't have gone far_, he thinks, and sets out to look for her. He doesn't have to search very hard; just around the corner, in the stark concrete corridor that leads to his door, Ruth is leaning, forehead pressed to the wall, arms wrapped tightly around her body in an attempt to control the terrible, silent sobs that convulse her slight frame as she weeps for Jo. Her protégé, her friend, her confidante…Harry's heart clenches painfully at the sight of her, so alone, so vulnerable, so unlike her usual tightly controlled self. Tentatively, he reaches out to touch her back, and at the same time he says her name softly, not wishing to startle her. There is too much sadness between them now, too many unspoken accusations; he hopes for nothing more than to offer her whatever crude comfort he can, the warmth of his body, the reassurance of being held by someone who loves her, has never stopped loving her. _Animals, too, seek out the comfort of each other's companionship, after all… Touch, it's a universal language, an intuitive need...a human being can die from lack of touch...I believe that, now. I really do..._

The uncontrollable shaking that wracks her body (_Shock,_ the clinical part of Harry's brain observes, _she's in shock_) increases as she blindly turns away from the wall and _(at last, oh, at last!)_ into his arms. Her tears soak his shirt front as she holds onto him like a woman drowning. _And so she is_, he realises, as for once he lets his instincts lead the way, one hand moving in small, soothing circles on her back, while the other holds her closely, drawing her into his warmth and strength. _She's drowning in grief, in the hideous reality of the ultimate sacrifice demanded in our line of work. She's reliving the loss of everyone she has ever cared about... _He knows this, because in this moment, he is drowning too, pulled under by the sound of her heartbreak. They cling to each other. _This is all that matters in the end,_ he thinks, _clinging to the wreckage, surviving no matter what. That, and having someone to share it with, the good and the bad days._ He tightens his embrace and holds onto her for dear life.

Eventually, the sobbing subsides, and she starts to draw deep, shuddery breaths, her breasts pushing against his chest tantalisingly. He remembers comforting Catherine as a tiny girl, after she had tripped on the hem of her new, too-long nightie, and took a nasty tumble on the stairs; he had taken her into his lap, sitting on the bottom step but one, and cuddled her until she was calm enough to carry upstairs to bed. Jane had not been at home, that night… A corner of his mouth quirks up: unbidden, an image of himself carrying Ruth to bed flashes through his mind. _I could still do it, too,_ he thinks, gauging her weight by the feel of her in his arms, even though his dicky knee would probably protest, and there's not a proper bed within a bull's roar of the Grid. A camp cot isn't quite what he has in mind, and then he chides himself for indulging in this line of thinking at all, what with Ruth grieving and Jo dead and a dozen more emerging terrorist threats to deal with (_but when_ _aren't there?_). For now, for this singular moment, he lets it all wash over and around him, content simply to hold her. _My brilliant, broken, beautiful, Ruth…_

He wonders if she has any idea how it feels, for him, after years of self-denial and self-restraint, to actually touch her like this. The sensations rushing through him are extraordinary, threatening to overwhelm his sense and reason. With the discipline born of long practice, he schools himself to be the man Ruth needs right now, ignoring the insistent demands of his own body as he cradles hers tenderly, stroking her hair and saying her name in his gentlest, lowest voice, over and over, like a mantra, or a benediction. Her grief gives way to exhaustion after a time, and finally she is spent, her cheek pressed against his damp shirt front, her body limp. Into the silence, Harry says her name once more, enquiringly, and she stirs slightly against his chest. "Let me take you home," he offers, and she gives a tiny nod of acquiescence, or exhaustion; at this point, he doesn't much care which. _She said Yes! _he exults privately, even though his outward demeanour is calm and careful_. Don't look around too soon, lad. No sudden moves…or she'll be out of reach in an instant…_

They separate and, each in their own haze, they collect their coats, meeting back at the Pods as if they go home together every night. Harry cups one hand under Ruth's elbow as he walks next to her, sensing her lassitude as deep tiredness washes over them both. _Thank God I drove in today,_ he tells himself, as he hands her into his old Range Rover (in British Racing Green, what else?). Harry just wants to be alone with her, to soak up her presence, with no staff driver to glance at them in the rear-view mirror, or chatty London cabby to have to give directions to. He swings into the driver's seat and starts the engine, glancing across at her to see if she is buckled up; a smile flickers briefly across his face, despite everything, as he sees that she is asleep already, curled into the plush pale leather upholstery, coat draped demurely across her lap, her dark hair falling across her tear-stained face, which is turned towards him. He pilots the tall, boxy vehicle out of the garage and sets course for home. Harry has carefully avoided specifying whose home he is driving towards; his initial thought had been that he does not want to leave her alone tonight, but he is self-aware enough to acknowledge that he doesn't want to spend another night with his solitary grief and a bottle of whisky, either. Not with Jo dead and Ros responsible for her death, even though he knows (_God help her, and me, and all of us in the days and weeks to come) _that it was the only way. _Tonight,_ he thinks, _we need each other, more than either of us will ever admit._ _Tonight, we belong together._

**A/N: This chapter opens with some lines from a lovely old poem, **_**The Arab's Farewell to His Horse**_**, by Caroline Elizabeth Sarah Norton, and I think it captures the emotional atmosphere of this time perfectly. Oh, and 'Haply' means 'What if' – it's not a typo for 'happily'! Far from it.**


	2. Chapter 2

As Harry pulls into his driveway, Ruth stirs and opens her eyes; momentarily disoriented, she focuses first on his face, then looks through the windscreen at the unfamiliar surroundings. "Where are we?" she murmurs, voice softer and hoarser than usual from crying, and then answers her own question in the next breath. "This is your house? Harry, weren't you taking me home?" He turns to face her, nervously aware that his next words could bring them closer, or tear them apart. _And God knows,_ Harry tells himself, _I've had more than enough of being apart._ "I…I didn't like to leave you by yourself, tonight. I thought you might be glad of some company, but I can drive you home, if you'd rather?" he says, and holds his breath as he waits for her reply. Ruth closes her eyes and rests for a moment, then a moment more, so that he begins to wonder if she has fallen asleep again. When she finally speaks, it is with her eyes still closed, and her voice is so small he has to lean towards her to catch her words.

"I'm so tired, Harry, so tired of all of this. I just want to sleep forever, and forget everything that's happened since...since George." _And there it is, the elephant – no, make that a bloody great woolly mammoth – in the room with us, _Harry thinks, as_ s_he opens her eyes and looks straight at him. His mouth goes dry at the sight of them, huge and haunted with loss and sadness, and something else too, something darker, hidden behind the pupils that almost obscure her pale aquamarine irises in the dim interior light of the Range Rover. She says again, "I'm so tired." Harry reaches across to take her hand, holding it between his own as if she is made of the finest spun glass; she allows him, but her skin is clammy and her small hand lies limp and unresponsive in his large, warm ones. Finally, he finds voice enough to speak past the painful knot that has formed in his throat. "Ruth, I'm done in too. I'd really rather not drive back halfway across London, but if you need me to, then I will. Just tell me what you want, Ruth. I'll do whatever you say." He tries to speak as gently as he can, but the truth is that he is bone tired and fading fast; the adrenalin surge fuelled first by the stressful hostage situation in which Ros and Jo were trapped, and later reignited by his embrace with Ruth on the Grid, has drained away completely now, and he is feeling very, very old. For himself, he wants nothing more now than to fall into bed and sleep the clock round, after consuming a very large quantity of whisky. Ruth's fingers twitch, seemingly involuntarily, within his, but she says in a small voice, her eyes still closed, "I don't care…I'm too tired to care." The passivity and resignation he hears strikes a chill into his soul. _This is more than shock at Jo's sudden death, this is deep, consuming grief, _he thinks; and like the coward that he feels himself to be in all matters involving Ruth, his heart shrinks from contemplating the cause.

Harry sits upright again, feeling every one of his years in the dull aching of his back, but Ruth seems to have drifted off; no more words come. His exhausted brain decides it's time either to get out of the car or stay there forever, so he carefully disengages himself from her cold little hand and opens his door, welcoming the crisp night air on his face. He leaves her there for the moment while he lets himself into his home, turning on lights and disarming the security system. The house is pleasantly warm, the central heating still on, and he notes that for once his weekly cleaning lady has actually done her job. There are even clean sheets on his bed. He walks back out to the Range Rover's passenger side and carefully opens the door. Ruth is still there, seemingly asleep. He watches her for a moment, still not quite able to believe that she is back in his life, far less that she is actually here, in his driveway; she stirs, and he puts up a protective hand in case she starts awake; it won't do for her to fall out of the Land Rover if she suddenly starts and wakes, but neither does he want to stand here indefinitely, slowly turning back into stone. _Harry the rock, the strong foundation upon which Section D is built…my given name really should have been Peter, although I don't fancy his ending…still, nothing's guaranteed in this line of work, and I may well end up being crucified, and upside down, too, for defending what I believe in and hold dear…none more so than this stubborn mule of a woman whom I have loved for so long now, I almost can't remember what it was like not to love her… Dad always said that a mule was a horse with brains, and that a man had to keep his wits about him, if he was working with mules, for they were neither easily bid nor easily led, but had to want to work; and then they were unbeatable. How right he was… but I'm woolgathering now, and it's cold, and late, and I am very tired…dead on my feet, Dad would say..._

"Ruth," he says, almost apologetically, and she opens her eyes, looking straight ahead. "Why are we really here, Harry?" Her voice is cool and distant, and she shows no signs of getting out. _Why, indeed. What's your pretext this time, Pearce? _he asks himself, and then thoroughly frightens himself with the answer: _There is none_. There are no pretexts, no legends. Just the truth that both of them have long avoided acknowledging; and then there is Jo. Ruth would not have returned to Section D without her friend's persuasion, this Harry knows as surely as he knows that the young woman's death was unavoidable in the circumstances. Ruth is looking at him now, waiting for his reply. "I…I didn't think you would want to go back to your flat tonight," – a dingy bedsit in Acton had been found and leased for her by someone from HR, attempting to be helpful in the aftermath of George's death and Nico's departure back to Cyprus, surrounded by grieving and openly hostile relatives. Ruth had accepted the ugly little flat with as much disinterest as if they had been offering her coffee instead of tea – "and so, I brought us here. Was I wrong, in assuming that you might prefer not to be alone?"

She blinks once, slowly, and his heart stills within him at her gelid gaze; he has only ever seen her look like this once before, the day that Danny died, and she had stood next to his bloody body and spoken to him as if he was still there with her. Witnessing that had chilled him to the core, but this is far, far worse; she has retreated from her initial outpouring of sorrow, of sobbing against his shirt-front, and now she is treating him as if there is a very great distance between them. Harry has a sudden image of the chestnut filly who first taught him patience, more than forty years ago, galloping to the other end of the field to stand, ears back, disdainfully watching his clumsy approach…

Finally, Ruth speaks, her voice measured and utterly devoid of inflection, like an automaton's. "I wasn't alone, a few weeks ago. I had friends and colleagues and a man who loved me…I had the sun and the sea…I had a lovely, simple life, and then it was all blown to pieces…oh, it's not your fault, I'm not saying that; but nonetheless, what happened, happened because of you. If I had never known you, never worked for Five, what might my life have been like? It would have been a far simpler, much happier one, don't you think? A normal life…yes, I think I should have liked that."

Each quiet word cuts him to the quick, but even so, Harry knows she is standing on a slippery slope; that great mountain made of _What If_s and _If Only_s that every officer of the Service, past or present, has at one time or another climbed, heartsore and despairing, to balance at the brink of the abyss, and look into the depths. Some are drawn closer by degrees, unable to resist questioning each operational decision made, the price of each life lost or saved on their watch – Tom Quinn was one such, in the end; some jump, hoping to escape a life that has become unbearable or untenable, and here Harry is reminded of Peter Salter – a tragic loss, but one of many he has endured during his tenure at Five; others gaze too long, and in doing so, find that the abyss has also gazed into them, and Connie and Tessa come to mind, with varying degrees of regret and sadness. Only Malcolm, his great-hearted former technical wizard, and friend for more than half his career, had somehow remained untouched, his moral integrity intact, and his character unblemished and unimpeachable in spite of all they had done together in the name of the realm; but even he had finally reached the mountain's peak, and having looked into the darkness beyond, had chosen to turn his back on the life that Harry feels is his fate to endure. Harry envies him that choice, more than he cares to admit; there are even moments when he allows himself to dream…but he cannot think about that now, not in the present situation, with Ruth once more laying his deeds at his door, as righteous as an avenging angel, and ten times as untouchable, in her cold rage against him, the world, life itself… Harry looks down at his feet, then back up at Ruth, forcing himself to meet her eyes. "I'm sorry, Ruth. I feel as if I could spend the rest of my life saying those words, and it will never be enough. I can never restore what you've lost, and you have no idea what that does to me. There's no going back, for either of us, but I would give the world to change what happened."

Ruth holds up a hand to stop him, and again she asks, "Why are we here?" Harry sighs, defeated, and then inspiration strikes; _Better still_, he thinks wryly, _for once it's the truth_. "For Jo's sake; she wouldn't want you to be alone tonight, and so I thought…" he raises and then drops his shoulders, out of words, running low on hope, and with a great lethargy seeping into every pore of his being. Ruth flinches at Jo's name, and Harry's heart lurches as a tear traces its way along her nose and trembles from the tip, unnoticed. "Jo," she repeats softly, her voice full of infinite sorrow and loss, and another tear rolls down her cheek. That does it: his heart breaks for the second time in nearly as many months, cracking along old and familiar fault-lines. "Ruth, please, come inside. It's warm there, and we can talk." She wipes the tears away, but he can see that she is wavering. "What about?" she wants to know, and he says, "Anything. Anything you like, or nothing at all...please, won't you come inside?" After what feels like an age, she nods once, imperceptibly, and accepts his steadying hand as she climbs stiffly out of the passenger seat and slowly walks towards the front door, pulling the edges of her coat together with one hand, as if the buttons are beyond her. Harry shuts the passenger door of the Range Rover, feeling as exhausted as if he has just successfully negotiated a live minefield, sets the vehicle's alarm, and follows her inside, into the warmth.

**A/N: Harry is referring, of course, to St Peter, the 'rock' upon which Christ founded his Church, and who was finally martyred for his faith; Peter requested that his cross be inverted, so as not to imitate his God. **


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N - Sorry for the delay in posting this final chapter - RL has been demanding far too much of my time and attention lately! Thanks to everyone who has read and reviewed the first two chapters. Please do feel free to follow suit with this one!**

As he follows Ruth inside, Harry hastily shuts the front door, then locks and bolts it top and bottom through sheer force of habit, while the old saying about stable doors and horses drifts tauntingly through his exhausted brain. He tarries in the hallway a few seconds longer, keying in the codes to activate the perimeter security system with fingers grown clumsy with cold, and, if he's brutally honest with himself – _And why not_, he thinks, _I'm willing to try anything at this point _– to delay the inevitable, now waiting for him in the sterile, beige-hued space that he hesitates to designate as a living room, or parlour; if it has to have a name at all, he supposes it is the sitting room. A generic room in which he sits alone, night after night, staring blankly at the plasma screen television in the corner, mechanically downing dram after dram of whisky until he can no longer feel his feet, or register the heavy loneliness that settles on him like a musty blanket.

His heart thudding dully against his ribs, Harry peers into the room; Ruth is sitting, straight-backed and prim, on (_dear God, why?)_ the only hard chair. She is studying her hands, neatly folded in her lap, and she is perfectly still; she seems oblivious to his hesitant presence in the doorway, until he makes a slight coughing noise, not wishing to startle her, and her head turns towards him slowly, her profile backlit by the bright illumination of the reading lamp behind her. He can just make out the colour of her eyes, but not the expression in them, as she says in a voice that holds only the barest suggestion of civility, "I'll have tea, thanks. White, no sugar," before she looks back down at her hands. Harry blinks: he hasn't been dismissed like that since he was a fresh-faced recruit in the cadet corps at university.

Silently, he backs out of the doorway and makes his way into the small, neat kitchen. Having put the kettle on to boil, he retrieves an oddly shaped green bottle from the pantry, and pours himself a generous measure – a good three fingers – into a heavy-based Waterford tumbler, before knocking it back in one hit. Thoughtfully, he eyes the bottle, and contemplates pouring another, but dismisses the idea as the kettle starts to boil; he hates its high-pitched shriek, and snatches it bare-handed from the hob, burning himself. Garry ignores the pain in his right hand as he hunts out the only good china he has ever had – a Royal Albert tea set that had belonged to his mother and which he has never quite been able to part with, despite the incongruity of the head of counter-terrorism sipping tea from delicate cups embellished with crimson garlands of roses. Carefully, he sets one cup, one saucer, and one teaspoon on a tray, together with a tea-pot and strainer (he abhors teabags, but puts up with them in Thames House for the sake of convenience), and a small jug of milk, miraculously still fresh after more than a week in his fridge. Finally, he shakes a few chocolate digestives onto a matching flowered plate, reasoning that _he _likes them, even if she won't have one, which he suspects more and more will be the case; then he collects his tumbler and bottle in one hand, seizes the tray with the other, and carries the whole lot back into the sitting room.

It seems that Ruth has not moved while he has been absent, and she starts slightly as he approaches and sets the tray down on the small piecrust table next to her elbow. She watches warily as he crosses to his favourite seat, a comfortable old brown leather wing chair that he had picked up at an auction of furniture from his club some years earlier. Her face is disapproving as he sits down with the bottle of whisky in hand, and for a moment he contemplates fetching another cup and having tea instead; but he simply cannot find the intestinal fortitude to forgo his dram, not with Ruth sitting there like Patience on a monument, and about as stony-faced, and not after the events of this dreadful day. _I'm damned if I do, and miserable if I don't,_ he tells himself, and then adds, _To hell with it,_ as he tilts the bottle and the fine malt spills into his glass. _She's not the only one who's grieving tonight. _On a mad impulse, he holds the bottle out in her direction; she recoils as if he is proffering a snake, and picks up the teapot to pour herself a cup.

"Humour me," he says in a voice hoarse with exhaustion and blurred by whisky, "Ruth, please. Join me in a drink, tonight, for Jo. You used to tell me I shouldn't drink alone…" At that, she looks directly at him for the first time since entering his house, and his breath catches in his throat at the emotions playing in her eyes; sorrow and anger mingle with a flash of that quick little wit that he has missed so much, and there is something else, too, something he daren't put a name to, but which emboldens him to say once more, "Ruth. Have a drink with me," and miracle of miracles, she gives him a tenuous little half-smile, and slowly holds out her still-empty teacup towards him. "I did tell you that, didn't I? Not that you ever took a blind bit of notice…" Harry concentrates on pouring her a drink without revealing that his hands are trembling, not from whisky, but with emotion, and when her cup is two-thirds full, he fills his own tumbler, and solemnly chinks crystal against china, holding her eyes with his own as he says softly, "To lovely Jo, who lit up the Grid with her smile, and lit up our hearts with her friendship. _Ave atque vale…" _ Ruth blinks, eyes misty, and replies, almost too low to hear, "To Jo, my dear, beautiful friend… I can't believe that I'll never hear your laughter or see you come bouncing onto the Grid again…" Before she dissolves into tears, as seems imminent, Harry lifts his glass and Ruth follows suit, coughing as the fine spirit catches at the back of the throat and burns its way into her belly; spluttering slightly, she sets her teacup down and looks at him, eyes warmer than he has seen them since her return. "That was beautiful, Harry, what you just said about Jo, I mean. I don't think I've ever heard you say anything so…poetic."

Harry ducks his head in embarrassment, and as the heat rises into his cheeks, he doesn't think the whisky is entirely at fault. He smiles, "Well, I'm not a complete monster, you know, contrary to popular belief." She nods slowly, but in her eyes he sees the shadows gathering once more, before she looks away. _Now I've done it, and she's off to the end of the field again, away from the uncouth human who has made a stupidly clumsy move by drawing attention to himself…_Harry realises that he is holding his breath as he waits to see what she might do, and reminds himself to exhale. Ruth looks at, or rather, through, him, and he senses that she is reliving those hideous moments once more; George's death, or Jo's…the weight of every life lost on his watch sits heavily on him tonight, and he reaches once more for the bottle next to his chair, wincing as his burnt hand comes into contact with it, seeking whatever solace can be afforded by a very fine single malt, as his heart aches for her, and for himself, and for Jo, and for every one of the fine officers he has lost in what is beginning to feel like a burdensomely long career. _Who was it who was cursed by the gods to forever roll a great stone up a steep slope for all of eternity? Malcolm would know…at any rate, I know how the poor bugger felt..._

Just as he is about to tip the remainder of the bottle into his glass, there is the lightest touch on the back of his hand (_a bit_ _like that_ _first tentative nudge in the middle of my back, _he thinks in wonderment; _can it be?_), and he looks up to see Ruth holding out her teacup. "Go on, then. I'll have another one too, for Jo." Her posture is relaxed, her eyes are clear, and for the first time tonight, Harry no longer feels as if he is on trial. He pours for them both, and sits back, loosening his tie and toeing off his shoes, too tired to untie the laces. For her part, Ruth sits back down, this time on the sofa next to his chair, curling her stockinged feet beneath her as she sips her whisky, a chocolate digestive balanced on one knee. The grace of her movements reminds him of her cat, Fidget, and he realises that she has never even asked him about her beloved pet. He debates with himself whether or not to tell her that the wretched animal had escaped a few weeks after he had brought it to his previous house, and despite his best efforts - _Malcolm must really have wondered about my sudden interest in all CCTV footage within a three mile radius of my street _- it had had never been seen again. He knows it would have tried to make its way home, back to Ruth, and he doesn't like to think of the dozen different fates that may have befallen it… _No, better not_, he decides. _Don't make any unexpected moves… just let her come to you, lad… _

Ruth half-smiles as she looks into her teacup, and says, "Jo would have liked this, I mean…us, remembering her together. She always was a believer…" Harry raises an eyebrow enquiringly, although he thinks he understands. Ruth blushes delicately – _oh, how that takes me back!_ – and adds, "In us, getting together. There was a book running on it at one time, I believe." Harry's other eyebrow joins its fellow, and she explains succinctly, "Zaf." Her face clouds, then, and he sees that Jo, or Malcolm, or someone, has apprised her of her friend's terrifying end. "Those must have been some long odds," he observes, thinking of the ambiguous, ambivalent nature of their relationship as it was before… before she chose to sacrifice herself for him… and to his surprise, she sits up straight and snaps, slurring her words ever so slightly, "Well, thank you _very_ much! You were hardly a prize either, Harry, you know. You were a pompous, overweight, middle-aged workaholic who had driven your family away because you were really married to the job, and nothing seems to have changed. I don't know what I thought I saw in you…"

_Whisky,_ he notes, _evidently brings out her truthful side; and I don't know what she saw in me either. I only know that no-one else, before or since, saw me like she did, and God, how I miss it, the absolute faith she placed in me… it gave me something to aspire to, to live up to. Without it, what have I become? Harder, more cynical, more adept at negotiating the corridors of power, perhaps, but less myself, too. Having you around helped me to stay true to my best self… _Ruth shifts restlessly, and it occurs to him that he hasn't answered her out loud_. I'm so tired, I'm having conversations with myself… _"That's not what I meant, but when you put it like that, I suppose I'm guilty as charged, on all counts. That's what you want me to be, isn't it, Ruth?" She looks directly at him, then, without any vestige of warmth or friendliness. "Well, aren't you?" Feeling lost somewhere between resignation and utter despair, Harry understands that she is talking about now, as well as then. _George. My God, will I ever forget the look on her face, the unearthly cry she made as she watched him fall? _ Harry shrugs defeatedly; she has already made up her mind, and if this is who she needs him to be, then he is willing to take it on as a penance, and allow her to scour his wounded heart with unjust lashes. "We could talk about this all night, but it won't change what's gone before. We can only live forwards, Ruth."

She stares at him for a minute, and then pulls her shoulder bag onto her lap and rifles through it until she finds her phone, flips it open, and calls a cab. "It'll be here in a few minutes," she tells him, tugging her boots back on and gathering her coat. He gets up with a groan when he hears her shooting back the bolts of the door, and shuffles towards her, age and weariness seeping into his joints. "At least wait until they pull up, it's freezing out there." She shakes her head, her hand already on the doorknob. "I'd rather wait outside. I don't want to miss them. Besides, I could do with some fresh air to clear my head. Thanks for the drink." She speaks in short, clipped sentences; helplessly, he watches her bolt out of the door and down the driveway, until she reaches the footpath beyond his property. There, she paces to and fro, stopping to stare along the road every few seconds, and once more he is put in mind of that high-spirited, flighty filly from years ago; it's something in her quick, nervous tread, or the way she impatiently tosses her hair back from her face, or her searching look, peering into the night, willing her cab to arrive and take her away to a safe distance. _Reaching her flight distance once again_, he thinks, but there's something else he has remembered from his youth, as the cab pulls up and she gets in without a backwards glance.

When the filly had frisked away from him for the umpteenth time, and he had been ready to throw in the towel, and call an end to this foolishness, his father had spoken, still leaning on the gate, wisdom and patience personified. "In the end, lad, she'll come to you, not because you want her to, but because she's drawn towards you; the two of you are connected as surely as if a rope joined you both, and she needs you, even if she doesn't know it yet…just you stand there, and wait, and you'll see." That night, he sleeps well for the first time since Ruth's return, and dreams of horses, and hope.

_**I could not live a day, and know, that we should meet no more**_

_**They tempted me, my beautiful, for hunger's power is strong – **_

_**They tempted me, my beautiful, but I have loved too long. **_

_**A/N: The closing lines are from The Arab's Farewell to His Horse, by Caroline Elizabeth Sarah Norton. And it was Sisyphus, who was made to roll the stone endlessly uphill in Hades, for his life of chronic deceitfulness.**_


End file.
